Comments on: What Is a Game? More Than We Usually Think It Can Behttp://www.gamefront.com/the-real-money-is-in-new-types-of-games/
Read the latest gaming news, get game downloads, mods, patches, and watch game videos at Game Front.Tue, 03 Mar 2015 17:10:01 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1By: Spider Porkhttp://www.gamefront.com/the-real-money-is-in-new-types-of-games/comment-page-1/#comment-391065
Spider PorkMon, 19 Aug 2013 23:28:53 +0000http://www.gamefront.com/?p=233492#comment-391065The problem as far as I can see it is that the industry is so starved of true innovation that when something comes along that LOOKS innovative superficially but is basically the same tropes and clichés we're already acclimatised to, customers/journalists etc aren't cultured enough to understand the difference because the culture simply doesn't exist yet.
This is especially true of major mainstream releases. You mention three which have basically been accepted as masterpieces almost entirely because they all prominently feature women and have decent storytelling, but they're all the same thing - shoot bad guys, maybe do some climbing and/or platforming, shoot more bad guys. No amount of forced politicising or prescriptive emotional fiat can change the fact that you could swap the gameplay around in all three games and there wouldn't be a profound difference. 'First-person shooter or third-person shooter' does not constitute legitimate choice for me.
But to be fair, all three of those were still marketed as action games. In the case of, say, LA Noire, it's less forgiveable. The main drawing power was the investigative elements, trying to remember clues and call peoples' bluff, read their expressions and find the right solution. It was binary, yes, but it was still pretty unique for a AAA release. Unfortunately it was undermined by having about 75% of the time spent shooting waves of anonymous thugs while taking stupid amounts of damage that could be easily dealt with by hiding behind a wall for three seconds. Any immersion I might have had was gone because of this. A bit of contextualised action (e.g. chasing suspects, VERY occasional shooting as an absolute last resort) would have been fine, but instead it came across as a standard shooter with a gimmick. The final level in particular was particularly galling in that it was nothing more than a long corridor of bad guys to gun down, in which you didn't even play as the character you'd played the majority of the game as, and there wasn't any kind of boss or even a different final guy who'd been involved in the plot. If you're going to fall into that sort of bad habit, the least you can do is give it a payoff.
Same goes for Heavy Rain. The amount of self-congratulatory crap I hear about this game is enough to make me vomit. It's marketed as a mature game with real consequences, but most of the time your actions don't make any significant or even minor difference. Two of the characters that can supposedly die before the end, can't. They just can't, because the writers weren't versatile enough to come up with scenarios were one or both of them failed to reach the climax. Plot holes, inconsistencies, and weak motivations are evident in, almost literally, every sequence. And again, in this supposedly adult game with 'innovative' controls (i.e. broken walking mechanics and lazy reliance on QTEs), and focusing on the mundanity of the lives of people we are given no reason to care about other than the insultingly simplistic and manipulative "a father's love for his son" excuse, the game STILL resorts to using a mass shooting scene that leads to absolutely no repercussions in this game supposedly all about repercussions. Once more, artificial assets were used to mislead people into placing their faith in a game that was fundamentally the same as most other games out there, but with worse movement.
Thank goodness for PSN and Xbox Marketplace, the true home of innovation in the console market, as well as indie devs.The problem as far as I can see it is that the industry is so starved of true innovation that when something comes along that LOOKS innovative superficially but is basically the same tropes and clichés we’re already acclimatised to, customers/journalists etc aren’t cultured enough to understand the difference because the culture simply doesn’t exist yet.

This is especially true of major mainstream releases. You mention three which have basically been accepted as masterpieces almost entirely because they all prominently feature women and have decent storytelling, but they’re all the same thing – shoot bad guys, maybe do some climbing and/or platforming, shoot more bad guys. No amount of forced politicising or prescriptive emotional fiat can change the fact that you could swap the gameplay around in all three games and there wouldn’t be a profound difference. ‘First-person shooter or third-person shooter’ does not constitute legitimate choice for me.

But to be fair, all three of those were still marketed as action games. In the case of, say, LA Noire, it’s less forgiveable. The main drawing power was the investigative elements, trying to remember clues and call peoples’ bluff, read their expressions and find the right solution. It was binary, yes, but it was still pretty unique for a AAA release. Unfortunately it was undermined by having about 75% of the time spent shooting waves of anonymous thugs while taking stupid amounts of damage that could be easily dealt with by hiding behind a wall for three seconds. Any immersion I might have had was gone because of this. A bit of contextualised action (e.g. chasing suspects, VERY occasional shooting as an absolute last resort) would have been fine, but instead it came across as a standard shooter with a gimmick. The final level in particular was particularly galling in that it was nothing more than a long corridor of bad guys to gun down, in which you didn’t even play as the character you’d played the majority of the game as, and there wasn’t any kind of boss or even a different final guy who’d been involved in the plot. If you’re going to fall into that sort of bad habit, the least you can do is give it a payoff.

Same goes for Heavy Rain. The amount of self-congratulatory crap I hear about this game is enough to make me vomit. It’s marketed as a mature game with real consequences, but most of the time your actions don’t make any significant or even minor difference. Two of the characters that can supposedly die before the end, can’t. They just can’t, because the writers weren’t versatile enough to come up with scenarios were one or both of them failed to reach the climax. Plot holes, inconsistencies, and weak motivations are evident in, almost literally, every sequence. And again, in this supposedly adult game with ‘innovative’ controls (i.e. broken walking mechanics and lazy reliance on QTEs), and focusing on the mundanity of the lives of people we are given no reason to care about other than the insultingly simplistic and manipulative “a father’s love for his son” excuse, the game STILL resorts to using a mass shooting scene that leads to absolutely no repercussions in this game supposedly all about repercussions. Once more, artificial assets were used to mislead people into placing their faith in a game that was fundamentally the same as most other games out there, but with worse movement.

Thank goodness for PSN and Xbox Marketplace, the true home of innovation in the console market, as well as indie devs.